Veterans Affairs Committee on May 15th, 2012

[Thurston Kaulbach]

A district office, yes.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

—which will increase the load on the call centres. It's the face-to-face that's being taken away.

[Thurston Kaulbach]

Yes.

It means that the only one left is in St. John's, and from St. John's to Corner Brook and the rest of Newfoundland, it's 900 kilometres.

In a more extreme case, they've taken away the ones in Windsor and Thunder Bay, which means there's nothing between London, Ontario, and Winnipeg.

That's a pretty shocking thing. I'm really concerned about the figures they're quoting in their transformation program and what the downstream impact will be if they drive the Department of Veterans Affairs in that direction.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Sir, the numbers that you're citing—did they come from Veterans Affairs? What's your source?

[Thurston Kaulbach]

The source of the numbers is the ombudsman's office, and also Veterans Affairs.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you.

Mr. O'Brien, you referenced the motions that were brought forward by the opposition in advance of the budget, seeking to follow the lead that has been set in other countries with respect to exempting the Department of Veterans Affairs from the austerity measures that have been introduced. I have a couple of questions for you along those lines.

It doesn't matter what question you ask or how you ask it, the answer that we're repeatedly given is that veterans' benefits will be maintained and veterans' benefits have been maintained. It doesn't matter what question we ask, that's the answer. Could I get your reaction to that? Should Canadians be proud that veterans' benefits have been maintained? Should we be proud of the level of service now being given to our veterans?

[Robert O'Brien]

I'm not very proud of it, but I don't have a tremendous amount to do with it. What turns a veteran off, what turns him to anger, is the sort of situation you describe, where the answer is that benefits won't be cut. Last October, we said we accept that benefits won't be cut. But if you cut first-line staff, you're going to hurt the veterans. Obviously we didn't succeed with that.

We know there are problems and we appreciate that there are people attempting to solve those problems. From our association's point of view, the biggest problem is that Veterans Affairs is not listening to veterans. You get a line in the presentation you were given last week that says something like, “This program will describe the results veterans and their families can expect to see.” Did anybody ask the veterans and their families what results they expected to see? I don't believe that happened.

One of the themes is sustaining the new Veterans Charter. I had to look up the word “sustaining”. There are six definitions of it in the Oxford dictionary. None of them includes words like “amend, change, improve”. They contain words like “support, keep alive, keep going, undergo”.

I'm sorry to be a little emotional. But I think it's starting to pass from a cooperative approach to a more confrontational approach, and this will never help veterans.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much. We're quite a bit over time.

I'll turn to Mr. Lizon for five minutes, please.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to you all for your service and for coming here, and to some of you for coming here again.

Maybe to change the tone, my first question is, is there anything positive in the charter? We're talking about negatives. I agree that there is always room for improved service and communication, and for improvement everywhere. But is there anything positive? Could we focus on positive things and go from there?

[Jarrott Holtzhauer]

One positive thing is the change in the VIP program, so that you don't have to apply every year to get the benefit. You can now get a sum of money and you can pay for your requirements. You don't have to justify everything you need. I think that's a good change. But we have to expand the program.

[Robert O'Brien]

I think there are a lot of positive things in the charter. The House and the Senate went through this quickly, because they believed...I'm sure they believed it would help veterans. That's a positive side. But it never got the review it required. For some years now, we've been trying to make the changes to the charter necessary to bring it to what was intended when it was brought into being.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Yes, sir.

[Gord Jenkins]

You're looking for positive things. Having you listen to us is, for us, a positive thing. That somebody cares enough to get four old you-know-whats in here and listen seriously to our concerns is a positive thing. We want to thank you.

Veterans Affairs, with its attempt at this transformation...I'm sorry, I'm an ex-public servant. I spent half my life as an EX-1 and I went through two of these organization renewals. All sorts of buzz phrases, all sorts of recommendations, and very few implementations. So if you do have transformation, then you have to have results. That they're trying that is a positive thing.

So yes, there are positive things, but remember when I finished I mentioned that...and you'll see it in the papers every day: public appeals for justice through news articles, people camping out in front of ministers' offices, vigils coming up on the 6th of June. We never had that. So there is something really wrong right now that has to be addressed, or we're headed for confrontation and not cooperation.

Thank you.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you.

You were talking about the reduction of the front-line staff, but as we all know, life changes, and the ways of communication have changed a lot. We tend not to write letters, and 20 or 30 years ago we used to. How does this work in the veterans community? As you mentioned in your presentation, Mr. Jenkins, we have Second World War veterans who would be in their late 80s, and of course we have modern veterans who are much younger and probably use the new ways of communication much more often. How do changes in technology affect different groups of veterans?

[Gord Jenkins]

The NATO web page, which I hope you'll all look at tonight, also has Twitter and Facebook links. But you've made a good point. Not everybody in our generation is hooked up to this wonderful Internet and web. So you put your finger on a generational thing, and this is something Veterans Affairs should look at, even with transformation: the various forms of communication, not only how they come out in bureaucratese, but how they come out in English, and also how they send it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Ms. Mathyssen for five minutes.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you very much for being here and providing us with this background information. It's very important, and we're profoundly concerned about what's happening to modern veterans.

In the brief you indicated that the federal government deemed it appropriate to place the post-Korean members of the Canadian Forces in an inferior category, and you suggest that it's because somehow peacetime operations weren't deemed as significant or important as World War II or Korea. But when we stand back from it, when we look at what's going on, first we've got a report about the VRAB and the incompetence there. We've seen the downloading of long-term care to the provinces. We've seen very clearly, as you say, a removal of Veterans Affairs from the concerns of looking after veterans.

It seems to me that Veterans Affairs has been busy washing its hands of its responsibility. You've suggested that it's because you're not seen to be as significant in terms of your service, but when we hear the government talk about cuts and the essential nature of the cuts and the decimation of Veterans Affairs by 804 people, it would seem to me that maybe the answer is a little simpler than that. Maybe it's just money. Maybe it's just because it's going to be expensive to look after those post-Korean vets, because, as you indicated, many of the injuries are serious. We are not aware of all that's coming.

Are you simply the victims of cost-cutting?

[Gord Jenkins]

Yes.

[Jarrott Holtzhauer]

The simple answer is oui.

[Thurston Kaulbach]

I would say that, reading the transformation plan that was put out, it struck me that this transformation plan was a “going out of business” plan for Veterans Affairs about 15 years down the road, maybe sooner.

[Robert O'Brien]

The funding is a major part of what's going on, obviously, but it's not the only difficulty that is faced. Even the transformation is going to cost a fair amount of money, particularly putting everything on electronic records and so on. It's a good idea, but I would support what Mr. Kaulbach just said.

It looks to us like a business decision has been made, and that business decision is going to cause suffering to veterans.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

We have time for a brief question.

Manon, be brief.

[Manon Perreault, NDP, Montcalm, QC]

So, previously, beds were reserved for veterans, under contract, but now those beds are being offered to the general public. So, there are no longer any beds reserved for them in hospitals. I just want to be sure I understood you correctly.

[Thurston Kaulbach]

Go ahead.

[Gord Jenkins]

Are you familiar with Perley hospital in Ottawa? It was a veterans hospital. There is a waiting list, ladies and gentlemen, of three years for World War Two and Korean veterans to get in. We don't stand a chance as a modern-day veteran of ever seeing a bed in a contracted hospital. When the last Korean veteran leaves Perley hospital, it will be open to civilians only.

Does that answer your question?